Japan launches high-speed communications satellite

Japan may already enjoy one the fastest internet speeds in the world, but that isn’t stopping the land of the rising sun from further distancing itself from everybody else in terms of bandwidth. Powered by a rocket designed and built in Japan, they’ve just launched a new satellite designed to provide “super high-speed data transmission” at home and in Southeast Asia.

The satellite, dubbed Kizuna, will reportedly be able to provide broadband internet connections to homes with download speeds of up to 155Mbps and upload speeds of 6Mbps, whereas commercial users with 5 meter antennas can tap into 1.2Gbps download speeds – that’s about 150 times the average high-speed ADSL connection rate of 8 Mbps, or 12 times faster than fiber optic wires.

Kizuna will be operational in July and its goals include improving rural broadband and increasing opportunities for remote education and telemedicine throughout Japan. It will also serve as a back-up network should terrestrial communications be disrupted by a major earthquake.